DEV The `Washington consensus¿ view of development consists of a vision of the benign effects of the spread of laissez-faire capitalism, in which the role of the state becomes rather passive. The paper argues that if this is to prevail, catch-up by liberalising countries will take many decades and massively high output to succeed. Redistribution by a more proactive state is needed to act more effectively. Dr Hasan contributed much of the political economy to this joint study.